NBN INSPECTION SERVICE

When importers purchase goods from China, they may often deal with some key issues. For example, how to find a suitable factory? How to check the credit and production capacity of a factory? Can the quality level of products achieve the expected level? Moreover, while producing, how to control the quality of raw materials? Are there defects concerning appearances and performances of products? Do packaging marks meet requirements? If everything is perfect, they are at ease to arrange shipment.

In many cases, foreign importers cannot monitor each step, so they find it difficult to control the quality of products in China. As an independent third-party inspection agency, Ningbo Norm Inspection Co., Ltd. provides professional customized services for foreign importers to guarantee the interests of the purchaser. These services which we can provide are:

Initial production check (IPC) in general means the check is conducted when samples are confirmed, raw materials, auxiliary materials and accessories are delivered to the factory and trial production starts in small scale. After arrangement of IPC, the principal can clearly know the real situation of the manufacturer including raw materials production, production personnel and production line condition, quality of products manufactured in limited quantities and any discrepancy against client requirements. All these information can effectively help the principal to better estimate the time of delivery and products condition and arrange further plan.

There is also another case. IPC can happen before the buyer placing an order. Our inspectors will visit the factories according to client’s requirements, make sure whether the suppliers are registered according to law and their credit, production capacity, quality control system and production management so as to provide client with convincing basis for judgment. Our inspection report will also include many photos you want to see.

In general, during production check (DPC) means the product inspection is made when the number of finished goods accounts for 10-30% of that in orders. We suggest the DPC is carried out after 10% of goods are produced as potential quality problems or discrepancies among product, package and client requirements may be found during inspection. After seeing the inspection results, the client may ask for reworking or directly reject the products, so it’s better to arrange DPC as early as possible to save material and labor costs and solve the problem in the early stage. For product with high value or high-quality requirements, DPC can be carried out for many times. In addition, during the process of DPC, our inspectors will sort and count the number of finished products, the number of packaged products, and record information on raw materials preparation and production situation (such as how many factories participate in the production of this batch of goods) which can help the client to estimate the actual date when all goods are produced and then make more reasonable goods delivery arrangement.

Pre-shipment inspection means the final inspection conducted before shipment after all goods are produced. Theoretically, the goods completed mean those which complete 100% of outer carton packaging, but some clients also accept PSI to be carried out on goods completing 90% of packaging. After shipment, the goods will be delivered to the warehouse of foreign clients. Some of them may be delivered to the warehouse of final client. Very serious consequence will be caused to bring clients with heavy losses if no potential quality problem of products is found during PSI, so PSI has become the last quality control measure and a kind of inspection valued most by us.

The process of PSI is very similar to that of DPC. After reaching the inspection site, QC personnel will sort and count the number of goods completed, measure size and quality of products, check color and packaging information such as printing on interior package, shipping mark of outer carton and way of packing, conduct basic performance test on products, and check their appearance defects.

Usually the number of samples is determined according to General Inspection Levels II, Critical: 0/Major: 2.5/Minor: 4.0. Certainly, we can also carry out the inspection according to client’s AQL level requirements (we will try our best to meet all requirements of client).

Does container loading supervision mean inspector supervising the process of loading the goods into the container? No, it’s not that simple. The following are our work content of CLS:

First sort and count the outer cartons completing packaging in supplier’s warehouse as well as products still on production line or packaging line and indicate them in the remarks.

Randomly select some outer cartons to open and check whether the type and quality of goods in them conform to order requirements. Products with any discrepancy will be rejected and recorded on the report. (If the aforesaid case is found, the inspector has no right to require the supplier to stop goods shipment.)

There is a wide work scope for production monitoring. Generally speaking, it means the inspector stays in the factory to carry out all random tests or 100% tests on production lines, follow up production progress and give feedback on time.

All our current PM projects are customized for clients. Different clients have different requirements, so the service fee can be adjusted flexibly. For example, there are different procedures for production monitoring in clothing and machining fields, so the inspectors need to have different professional specialties. We will dispatch the inspectors or engineers with related knowledge and experience to go to the factory to ensure the estimated client task is completed smoothly.

Factory Audit (FA).

The factory audit mentioned here and provided by us is “simple factory audit” and is mainly for the situation when the buyer finds a suitable supplier and intends to make trade cooperation with it but know little about it.

What the client wants to know is what we want to know. The FA services provided by us will truly reflect the situation of suppliers in all aspects including whether the enterprise is registered in China according to law, whether they have good credit, its financial position, personnel structure, production capacity, production equipment condition, quality control system, new product development capacity, raw material supply, current clients’ distribution and proportion, worker rights protection and whether any child laborers are used.

FA is an excellent way to know supplier’s detailed information because our principal will see a detailed FA report for it to make better judgment on the supplier before starting trade cooperation.

In general, it will take 1 man-day for a factory’s audit service. The audit fee is USD229.